“Damn right,” he says to her, and then he winks.
I sigh.
“What?” he says.
“You are making it harder for me to think you’re sensible. Sensible men don’t wink,” I say, thinking gloomily of Louis, who winks at least once a day, and is definitely an idiot.
“Why the hell would you want to be sensible? You want this girl, don’t you?”
I nod into my Yowza smoothie (ginger, rocket, orange, carrot).
“So take her!”
“Pedro . . .”
“I just mean—she is offering you something. Not everything you want, sure, you want the marriage and babies . . .”
I glare at him. He grins.
“But it’s a start.”
“It’s a start.”
This is what I told myself last night. Izzy seems programmed to think the worst of me—the reason everything I did yesterday backfired was because she assumed at every point that I was trying to make her as miserable as possible. By the time we got to my flat, I was so defeated, and then she was walking out on me, and I knew she’d kiss me back if I kissed her. Resisting any longer just seemed impossible.
“Her rules are a good idea—they’ll stop you catching feelings,” Pedro says. He wipes down the coffee machine and throws the cloth over his shoulder.
Those rules. They infuriated me. But I know Pedro is right: I’m developing dangerous feelings already, and if there aren’t any boundaries when I spend the night with her, I am at real risk of harm.
“You’re a big boy, Lucas,” Pedro says. “What is it you’re afraid of?”
I close my eyes. “I think I was holding back the only card I had, and now I’m playing it,” I say eventually. “I have one thing she is interested in and I’m about to give it to her.”
The next woman in the queue is ordering. Pedro ducks his head to listen to her, then spins on his heels to start conjuring up a white chocolate latte.
“You’re talking like an American girl about to give up her virginity, cara,” Pedro says, and then realises he’s speaking English and laughs as the entire queue turns to stare at me.
“Thank you for that.”
“Sorry. I’m just saying, you’re not giving anything up. Sex with her means closeness. It means pillow-talk and all those hormones that women get when they have sex with you.”
“Pedro,” I say, rubbing my forehead.
“OK, if you want to be romantic about it, you’re showing her how it could be between the two of you if you were together. So many great love stories started in the bedroom. My brother’s wife was his one-night-stand rebound girl! And now they have a horrible number of children.”
This is actually quite helpful. “Thank you, Pedro,” I say.
“No problem! Now remember, be safe, cara—condoms are your friend!”
This, of course, is in English. I drink the last of my smoothie, shoot the sniggering Pedro a filthy glance, and head for the door.
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
When I arrive at Forest Manor for my shift, I realise that this feeling in my stomach is actually quite familiar: getting to work and wondering what Izzy will throw at me today. But it’s new, too. The excitement, the anticipation for tonight. Thinking about her body, and knowing I can, because within a matter of hours—unless she’s changed her mind—I’ll be holding her.
But it’s not Izzy who walks in next, it’s Louis. He’s wearing an open-necked white shirt under an expensive wool coat, looking every bit the modern Englishman.
“Lucas, hey,” he says, tapping a hand on the front desk. It’s strewn with old cigar cases—Mandy was photographing them for “those little Instagram videos with songs on them” at the end of her shift. “Izzy about?”
“Not yet. Would you like a table in the bar for a coffee?”
I hate that I have to be polite to this man. I hate that he gets to buy Izzy flowers and I don’t.
“No, I can’t stop. Just wanted to see if she’s still on for this evening.”
I take too long to answer, and he tilts his head, eyebrows raised. Reminding me that he’s a customer, and ignoring him isn’t an option.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But she didn’t mention having plans this evening.”
“I’m taking her to the Winchester Christmas market. Parking’s a nightmare, but I’ve got a friend with a space in Fulflood, so we’re set,” he says with a little smile, as if to say, Aren’t I the lucky one?
She can’t be seeing Louis tonight. Tonight is our night.
“Would you like me to give her a message?” I snap out.
“No, don’t worry,” Louis says, tapping the desk again and pushing away. “I’ll just WhatsApp her.”
All the tension that left me in the gym is surging through me again. My phone rings; I answer too quickly, desperate for the interruption, and the person on the other end of the line says, “Oh, hi,” taken aback.
Louis gives me a small wave as he heads for the door, and I resist the temptation to return this with a rude gesture.
“It’s Gerry,” says the man on the phone. “My son said a woman rang about a ring?”
I sit up straighter. “Yes, sir,” I say. “Can I help you?”
“It was a long, long time ago, but I actually do recall a lady losing an engagement ring while I was staying at your hotel. She asked for my help looking for it. In the end, we never tracked it down. She told me she’d get a replica made so as not to upset her husband, who was a lovely bloke, loved her to distraction. Sorry, I don’t remember their names.”
I jot this down. “Can you tell me which ring it is you’re referring to, sir?”
“An emerald one. Izzy Jenkins emailed me?”
“Thank you so much for calling,” I say. “It’s all written down—I’ll let her know.”
She walks in just as I tuck the note I’ve written under her keyboard, beside her to-do list. My whole body tightens at the sight of her, and I smile—I wouldn’t be able to stop myself even if I wanted to. She looks beautiful. She’s in her uniform, rucksack slung over her arm, gold rings glinting on her fingers and her ears.
“Lucas,” she says with a quick arch of her brow.
“Izzy.”
I watch her as she comes around behind the desk, slinging her bag under her chair and turning her computer on. She side-eyes me, ponytail bouncing. Her hair is still striped in red and orange, and beside the fine gold necklace she always wears is just one more, with a tiny broken heart pendant. I wonder why she made those choices—the fiery hair, the heart.
She reads my note and frowns.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing, it’s just . . . this makes things more complicated with the emerald ring. If half the couple don’t even know it was lost, because the woman kept it a secret . . .” She purses her lips. “Never mind. I’ll get there.” She widens her eyes slightly at her to-do list. “So much to do today. Chat through the snag list for the bannisters with Irwin, negotiate some deals we can actually afford for staff at the Christmas party, torture you interminably until the evening comes . . .”
She meets my eyes, and her expression is pure wickedness. My heart lifts: She isn’t seeing Louis tonight. She’s got plans with me.
“It’s going to be a long day,” she says.
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
She makes me wait until eleven before she plays her first move. I return from a trip to the post office to find her looking up at me from the desk with a quick, devious smile that hooks something in my chest and pulls it taut. She stands, reaches for my desk chair, and wheels it away towards the lost-property room.
“Am I using your chair today, or . . . ?”
“This way, Lucas!” she calls.
I humour her. I’d follow her anywhere these days—maybe I always would have. When I step into the lost-property room, I pause. There’s a trestle table set up in here, and an array of face paints on its surface.
“My skills are a little rusty. I need a subject to practise on ahead of the Christmas party,” she says, pointing to my desk chair, now positioned in the centre of the room.
She walks to the door and clicks it shut. The sound sends a shiver across my skin like the trail of a fingertip.
“Sit,” she says when I don’t.